Knox let out a little grin seeing the arrow pierce that wretched dog.
“Looks like your little mongrel bit off a bit more than she could chew.”
Did he really just say that?
“You might want to take another look.”
Just then Freya lunged at the archer from behind. Her metallic claws ripped through the Archer’s cloak, tearing it from his body. The archer stumbled forward in shock falling face forward into the dirt. He urgently kicked at the enraged dog who was nipping at his feet, tearing deep rents in his flesh. The swordswoman was there in a flash, tackling Freya off of him.
“What?! Kill these bastards!” screamed Knox.
See… the archer had seen his arrow pierce that cursed dog. Hell, they all did. A little secret they weren’t privy to however, was the fact that she’d just learned a shiny new skill, and what they’d actually seen was the arrow piercing an illusory decoy she’d left behind.
Calvin leaped forward at Knox with his spear leveled at his throat. Knox wasn’t unprepared for this however and swatted the spear aside with his club, following up with a powerful kick to Calvin’s ribs that sent him sprawling.
Knox barreled forward after the tumbling Calvin with this club raised high in the air, bringing it down for a killing blow.
Thwap
Thwap
Two lightning-fast pebbles slammed into Knox, destroying one of the metal plates on his armor sending his smash off target.
BOOM!
The club slammed into the ground, kicking up a small eruption of soil and leaving a nice crater in its wake. That could have been Calvin’s head.
Two sentry drones rose above the walls, both locking their focus on the swordswoman, two energy pulses rang out, slamming her to the ground. She screamed as she rolled out of the way and scrambled quickly to her feet.
Marshall didn’t give her time to recover, and hit her with two more rounds from his pistol, gravely wounding her as she collapsed back against the encampment walls.
Amy had disabled her caster with a toxin-infused stab to the leg. Her sonic edge blowing apart a large section of flesh. Without healing, they would most certainly die. Amy was moving swiftly, closing the distance on the two near the gates. She let loose an Echoing Strike on the remaining caster, her spectral dagger rocketed across the battlefield.
The caster across the clearing stepped forward, into nothing, reappearing in a flash near the target Amy had just wounded. Her dagger flashed by the empty space before detonating in the air.
“ENOUGH!” came a booming voice, obviously amplified through some skill.
The entire battle paused momentarily as a cloud of dust settled around the furious Knox.
The battle had gone on for no more than 30 seconds. Freya had the archer’s leg in her mouth as she dragged him along the ground. The swordswoman lay wounded and bleeding with her back against the wall, she clearly wouldn’t make it without healing.
They all looked over at Knox who was shrouded in a damage-protecting barrier.
“You really fucked up here Calvin. You should have done as you were told. Maybe then I would have let you live. Probably not, but maybe. Do you think your little band of shitbirds is strong because you took out the trash? Good riddance.” he said. “You better watch your backs out there. I’ll be seeing you.”
And with a quick motion, he completely vanished into the jungle. Through Freya’s link, Calvin could hear him barreling through the jungle away from their camp. A movement skill he thought.
No more than a second later, the casters vanished as well.
Calvin commanded Freya to cease her assault on the heavily wounded Archer.
The group approached the wounded bodyguards with eyes full of rage. Amy wasn’t ready to calm down just yet and planted a boot straight into the Archer’s face.
“Marshall, Ian, let’s drag these two inside. Get them restrained and Marshall, take care of their wounds.” Calvin ordered.
“Really? I was thinking about shoving my pistol down their throats.” Marshall said.
“Oh, believe me, that still isn’t off the table. But first, our new friends here have some questions to answer.”
***
“Listen! He will kill us if we say anything!” the archer shouted in desperation.
“I’m going to kill you if you don’t say anything!” Marshall shouted. He was pissed, and rightfully so. They had dragged Amy around like an animal and that was just no way to behave.
Calvin placed his hand on Marshall’s shoulder to calm him down. He didn’t think Marshall would outright murder these people, but tensions were high and the situation wasn’t ideal right now. The first humans they’d encountered out here turned out to be total douchebags.
“Nobody is killing anybody, for now. Let’s just start with your name.” Calvin said, trying to sound calm.
The archer glanced over at his partner who just gently shook her head.
“Guys, I’m not messing around here. You came into our camp, threatened our people, tried to steal from us, and my guess is that you were rooting around here a few days back going through our stuff. We’re not the bad guys out here. We’re just trying to survive this fucked up place. But as you can see, our tolerance for this bullshit is pretty low. Either you start making sense, and giving us information we can use or we can just classify you as a threat.” Calvin flashed his stats screen showing them he was level 14, “I don’t believe I have to spell it out for you how we’ve had to handle threats so far.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Ian let a little lightning crackle on his fingertips for effect.
“Alright… ” the archer said with a sigh. “My name is Liam, this here is Sasha.”
Sasha gave him a look of despair.
“I go by Ghost and they call her Ripper. I know it’s stupid. It’s something Knox came up with. You have to believe me though, we didn’t want to come here and fuck with you.”
“So why did you?” Calvin asked.
“It’s Knox. That’s what he does. As you’ve seen, he’s really strong. He’s let that power go to his head, and out here… for people like him, it’s like a game.” Liam gave an apologetic look at Sasha and continued. “Sasha and I came here with several others, including my father and her sister. We’d gotten the shit kicked out of us by some fucked up alligator thing on our first day here. Her sister got hurt really badly. We spent the next few days trying to tend to her wounds and gather supplies. We couldn’t go very far from our camp though. None of us were fighters, and… well you know what it’s like out there.”
He took a steadying breath and continued.
“It was maybe day 6 or 7 when Knox and his group showed up. At first, he seemed great. He offered to help us out and take us back to an encampment he’d set up not far from us. He had food, some healers, and we were out of options. It didn’t take long to figure out what we’d gotten involved with. He’s a fucked up, deranged snake. He press-ganged us into his little roving squad. Initially, it wasn’t awful. We went out in squads to gather supplies, do some hunting, and train up our skills. We’d all gotten classes and started to see that there was maybe a chance to survive this hell.” Liam’s words drifted off, not quite sure what to say next.
“I could maybe believe this story a little better if you skip to the part about how you go from helpless, injured, and starving, to being his right hand in an assault on our camp.” Calvin prodded. His bullshit meter was going haywire at the moment.
Marshall was wearing a groove in the dirt pacing back and forth. He was listening to every word, and somehow, it made him even angrier.
“Several days back, we were on a patrol with Knox and we came upon another group. Normally, we’d recruit them and they would join up without question, just like we did. This time though, they refused. They were decently strong on their own, relatively well stocked and said they wanted to keep to themselves out here. Knox didn’t like having his ‘generosity’ turned down and ordered us to kill one of them. My father spoke up… he refused. He’d said that we weren’t murderers and we should be helping anyone we find out here… ” after a short pause, “For that, Knox crushed his skull. It worked. That bastard wanted to scare them into joining, and he killed my father to send exactly that message.” Tears were streaming down Liam’s face.
“Now, he has Sasha’s sister, Lexie. He’s using her as a bargaining chip to keep us in line for whatever fucked up other shit he has planned. If we didn’t come along with him and follow his orders, who knows what the fuck he would do.”
Calvin looked down into the dirt for several moments, searching for his next words.
“Sasha, is this true?” he finally asked.
She stared back at him, tears rimmed her bloodshot eyes. For a moment, it looked like she wouldn’t say anything. Then she broke down in sobs. “Yes… We’re so sorry. Please, you have to let us go.”
Calvin looked back at his group. The duality of their feelings was evident on each and every one of their faces. On one hand, they were pissed at these two. If their group hadn’t been as strong as they were, or as prepared, they’d likely be dead right now.
On the other hand, if what Liam and Sasha said was true… that made Amy’s blood boil. Hell, all of them were fuming. How could humanity be so fucked up? How could someone get dropped here in this nightmare circus and take it as an opportunity to terrorize others?
Calvin picked up Sasha’s hand. She was still sobbing, having lost all of her fight.
“Sasha, we aren’t going to hurt you. Either of you. I’m not going to immediately say we trust you just yet. We do need you to answer some more questions for us, ok?”
She nodded.
Seth stepped in now, having experience in these kinds of situations.
“Can you tell us where Knox went? Where is your camp?” Seth Asked.
“There’s a pond, with those bear creatures. We saw you fighting them several days ago.” Liam began to answer, “It’s about another half day’s hike past that.”
“Alright, how many people are at this camp?”
“A little over 20. Maybe 30 by now? We find people almost every day.”
“We haven’t seen anyone else besides you out here. How are you encountering so many?”
“Best we can tell is that we were all spread out pretty far. You’re the furthest group we’ve come across yet. We have several scouting parties out every day and we cover a lot of ground.”
Seth nodded. It made sense. They’d been holed up in the dungeon for quite some time, and before that, they focused on staying closer to camp.
“What’s the fighting strength like there?”
“It’s not high, but he has numbers. There are a few people over level 10, Knox is 16. The equipment is pretty sparse too. Everything we have has been taken from others, Knox and his pals get the first pick. That club for example. It has some ‘kinetic damage’ enhancement. His armor is pretty good too. Everything else is just scraps that he leaves for us.”
Liam thought for a moment, “There are a few healers, some standard warrior types. There were three assassin-type classes, Shade was one of them. There are also three casters. The one in black robes was Void. He’s some sort of space mage and one of Knox’s closest. Knox has a loyal core of five or six die-hards. They’re completely on board with his bullshit and he uses them as generals of sorts for his squads… to keep everyone in line you know?”
“How come Knox just walked right in here? He didn’t seem worried at all. Why doesn’t he just send you all in for his dirty work?” Calvin asked.
“I mean... He’s strong. He’s like a berserker. He wouldn’t tell us what class he got but I know his toughness is through the roof. He can boost himself with skills and his armor lets him create an incredibly powerful barrier. I’ve never seen anyone or anything break through it. I suspect Void is doing something to strengthen it too. I also think he’s playing a character. He puts on a front like he’s unstoppable for the guys. Who knows, maybe he believes it... Maybe it's true.” Liam said.
Calvin nodded, the pieces falling into place. This jackass thinks he’s the toughest brute out here and uses that to get people to fall into line.
“Alright. Liam, Sasha. We’re going to go talk about this amongst ourselves ok?”
“Please, we told you everything. Please don’t hurt us. I need to get Lexie!” Sasha screamed through her tears.
Seth placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “We are not going to hurt you. You have been more than cooperative. I am sure we’re going to have some more questions. In the meantime, we’re going to help you over to the fire, rustle you up some food and we’re just going to decide our next course of action alright?”
They both nodded in agreement.
Marshall and Seth helped the two up from the ground and seated them on some mats by the fire.
Amy and Ian had already started preparing some food from the day’s haul, and while their grand feast would have to wait, the spread was pretty good. Andy helpfully informed them that most food items in the tutorial were not poisonous, and those that were would be identified as such. The goal of the tutorial was nurturing power through trial and challenges after all, and those trials didn’t typically consist of crippling bouts of diarrhea.
They served up the two captives a pretty generous helping of meat skewers and roasted vegetables to start and left them to their meal in the warmth of the crackling fire.
“Andy, are you able to keep an eye on them and alert us if they try anything?” Calvin asked.
“Yes, that is within my capabilities. I am prohibited from directly engaging in defense against them, however, I can alert you if they become hostile.”
With that, the group headed into Calvin and Amy’s cabin to discuss.
Liam and Sasha sat in the glowing warmth of the fire, watching the group walk away. They had attacked these people, threatened to kill them, and now they’re sitting at their fire, eating food they had cooked. Their wounds had been healed, and quite honestly, they’d been treated very, very well.
“Sasha, I think we fucked up. We should never have gotten involved with that bastard. We’re going to get Lexie back and we’re getting the fuck out of there.” Liam said.